When She Smiles
by esprit noir
Summary: No bad deed ever goes unpunished. JayneRiver. More sad, than romantic. Rated M Just in Case.


A/N: This is my first piece of fanfiction ever…please DON'T go too easy on me. I'm fully aware that it warrants future revision: seeing that my characterisation is somewhat off and it's a little bit all over the place and also that I haven't gotten the 'whedon-speak' quite down…but it was just something that had to be written.

Any criticism (constructive would be nice thank you) or positive comments welcome!

Disclaimer: I do not own Firefly, nor any of it's characters which are property of the Joss Whedon (a genius and a god). Everything left over is MINE!

Blurb: No bad deed ever goes unpunished. River and Jayne

WHEN SHE SMILES

Jayne can't help it.

For all the times he's put her in danger, all the times he's wanted to kick her off the ship, all the times he's been a danger to her himself, it seems like karma has come along and bitten a chunk right out of his heart.

Now all he wants is to hold her, and protect her. But he knows he can't. It's so despicable of him, that Jayne starts to hate himself. Love has turned this devoted self-preservationist into a man who would lay down his life for this little slip of a girl.

She looks at him with those big doe eyes, and he knows she sees all, though she never says a word. She just smiles, and tosses her head in amusement, like she knows how much power she's got over him, and she loves the control. It kills him, because every time she smiles he dies a little bit inside.

Jayne feels the same way he felt when he was a little boy, and he asked his mother to pick him a star from the sky. That was the day he found out that mama couldn't do everything. He would spend the rest of his life seeking to capture that star that seemed to wink at him from the night sky, calling her to him like a Siren.

It was like some gorram joke.

Here she was. His star that he had lusted over for so many years. Within his reach and yet so far away. All he had to do was reach over and touch her. He didn't know how she'd respond. If she'd kiss him or kill him. Probably just break his arm in fifteen different places and then drag him to the infirmary to get her doctor brother to finish him off with a shot of something nasty.

He wondered idly, if the pain would be any worse than what he was suffering already. Whether, that one chance to have her in his arms, if even for a minute fraction of a second, would be worth the injury she would cause him after wards.

It probably was.

But this didn't change the fact that he was a gorram monster, who had no business trying his luck with a delicate like her.

Of course, she had shown them all that she wasn't completely helpless. After all, a girl doesn't fight off a whole maggoty lot of Reavers and live to tell the tale without a little something up her sleeve.

But at the same time, when she wasn't the lethal weapon, she was a fragile girl. Frightened and lost. Crying as if something was drilling a hole in her head, and shaking like she was being attacked from the inside.

She had improved after Miranda. The secret that had fried her brain had now been exposed and it had lifted the burden from her. But the nightmares still came sometimes. He would hear her screaming in the night. Crying and wailing like a child. It took all his gorram strength not to go running to her room and scoop her up into his arms and tell her it was all alright. Nothing was going to hurt her because he was here to protect her for now and forever.

He had to keep telling himself it wasn't right. A man like him with a pure one like her.

It just wasn't right. Unnatural and all that…so wrong…so wrong…

Jayne had never been one to be ruled by the morals of other people. He sexed and drank and gambled until he was sick and then he pillaged some more just to dull the pain. But River had changed that. She had made him think and wonder.

For every man he had shot, was there a mother somewhere waiting for her son to come home?

For every whore he had been with, had there been a sad story behind her twinkling eyes?

For every bit of cashy money he had taken from an innocent…had there been a child who had gone hungry?

These questions plagued him at night, when there was nothing to distract him from his mind. So it was that Jayne threw himself deeper into work than ever before.

As it was, that night, Jayne was feeling all the more restless. Zoe had just gotten off, not to return again. Gone home to raise the baby girl that was all she had left of Wash in the whole gorram galaxy. After hours of tossing and turning, and many deep swigs of the whisky he drifted off…

He woke up to the feeling he was being watched. It took Jayne only a second to realise that there was a figure standing at the end of his bed and only half a second to grab the pistol from his large range of weapons he kept by his bed and ready it for fire.

"I forgot to knock…"

Jayne started, and flipped the light switch. Light flooded the tiny bunk and exposing the figure to be none other than River herself.

"River! What the ruttin' hell are you doing?" snapped Jayne, putting his pistol down "I might have killed you!"

She laughs "You don't think I would have let you do that do you?"

Jayne does not feel in the mood for jokes "What the hell do you want?". Her reply could not have been more surprising.

"I'm sick of waiting for you Jayne."

The reply comes so softly, in a voice so utterly unchildlike, and unearthly, that it almost doesn't seem to belong to her. It disturbs him, but at the same time, he feels his skin growing hot with excitement.

"W-waiting…for what?" he splutters as she begins to advance on him.

She slides towards him, on all fours, looking at him through long dark lashes, "I want you to know me…the way I know you…"

A groan escapes him, as she straddles him and Jane revels in the feeling of the silken skin of her thigh against his bare side. The pressure of her body against his, fuels the fire in his stomach.

She's looking down on him now, her hands resting on his chest, her lips slightly parted, making him crazy for kissing them. He wants to sit up, but realises she's holding him down…hard.

The strength encased in that tiny bird like hand is almost astonishing thinks Jayne through a fog of lust.

"Are you ready…?" Her voice is quiet, but teasing, and almost challenging.

Jayne gazes into her liquid black eyes and feels himself drowning in them. "R-ready for what…" he stammers, panting hotly.

She smiles. Not that crazy smile that damages his calm, but a smile he hasn't seen before. A smile that he fancies is only for him.

She lets out a delightful giggle which temporarily entrances Jayne.

Quick as lightening, she grabs his wrists and secures them above his head, pushing down on them hard, and squeezing her thighs together so he can't wriggle out of her grasp before securing his wrists with a belt, he realises is his own.

"Oh my…" murmurs Jayne, his heart racing.

River shakes her head and tuts playfully "Never underestimate the girl." Slowly, she leans forward, and with her lips right next to his ear, she whispers "She knows it all."

Jayne frowns at the comment. Suddenly his heart is still racing for a different reason. As she pulls back, he looks into her eyes and sees something different than before.

Something…darker…something…that frightens him.

"I…I…"

"Shhh…" she shushes him, placing a long finger against his lips "I know…she hears everything" Her fingers are tracing circles on his chest now. The tingle is delightful but Jayne's feeling a little more than nervous now. He swallows convulsively and tries to move his hands, but realises that River's secured them vice-like.

"G-girl…these cuffs are kinda tight. You mind loosening 'em a bit?"

River looks at him blankly "Why would I do that? If I did then you'd be able to escape."

Jayne's blood freezes as the blade appears from nowhere and is pressed down against his throat. The cold the blade is nothing compared to the heat of her body, still pressed against his.

"N-now…R-river…what you doin' now? I ain't got no argument with you girl…"

"Quiet!" she snarls pressing the blade down harder.

Jayne feels his windpipe being pressed down upon and tries to focus on not choking.

"You don't get to talk anymore!" she snaps, her voice breaking ever so slightly "Not anymore…my turn!"

"Oh, oh, alright…fine…" Jayne whispers, his brain working quickly to think of a way out. Normally, he would just throw her off, but she's got him locked in a vice, and if he moves, his head will come off as well…

"I told you…I want you to know me…as well as I know you…this is it. This is what it feels like to be me…this is how I felt when you handed me and my brother over on Ariel. Do you remember that? I do!" tears are streaking her face now, but she never falters "Do you know what those men did to me? For years…needles in the brain, needles in the heart, drugs down the throat, wires under my skin! Live like this…on the edge of existence…on the edge of the knife…and see how you feel…"

"I…I…"

"What?" snaps River, eyes wide with anger and incredulity "You're _sorry_! Time and time again, you want to get rid of the girl…come along girlie," she begins to mock him, her voice growing more alarmingly urgent and ferocious by the word "we're taking a shuttle ride. You're getting off now. Why is she still HERE!" The last word almost shatters Jayne altogether.

"And now you want me here…in your bed…your slave…you're disgusting"

"You're crazy!" Jayne growls "I always knew you were."

River smiles, a cruel sickening smile, and at last Jayne realises why it's only for him.

"I always said you looked better in red…"

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